AN OPEN LETTER TO THE PARTIES AND THE MEMBERS WHO

CONTESTED THE 2010 “SHAM ELECTIONS BY PRO-DEMOCRACY

The State Peace and Development Council’s attempt to legitimize its rule via “shamelections” has finished. These “sham elections” however failed to address both internaland international criticism.

The international call for the participation of all parties was ignored. At the same time,over 2,200 political prisoners remained behind bars throughout the election. The electioncommission not only barred the opposition from their fundamental right to assembly andto organize but it also openly committed vote-cheating, stealing votes and taking sides infavor of the junta’s favored party. In addition, the elections were not fair as a highmajority of voters were forced to cast their votes under coercion through advance ballots.Military personnel and civil servants, together with their families, and poor people wereforced to cast advance votes for the junta’s favored party. According to the internationalobservers the actual voter turnout was less than 40% instead of the regime’s claim of over60%.

Furthermore, the referendum passed in 2008 in respect of the military dominated

constitution, was in itself a sham as the constitution was drafted by a fake nationalconvention and the referendum was passed through the use of the same unfair advanceballots and vote-cheating they have employed in the 2010 “sham elections”. The 2008referendum was also passed in the midst of the devastation of Cyclone Nergis.

Therefore, the results of these “sham elections” do not represent the people ofBurma. For that reason, we hereby call for the international community andgovernments not to recognize the upcoming parliament and its government.

Despite the unjust electoral laws and intimidation, some candidates and parties stillparticipated in the election in good faith. However, the harsh reality is that they lost to thetricks and blatant lies by the election commission.

The handful of the democratic and ethnic party candidates who managed to be electeddespite the “sham election” will face intimidation and domination from the members ofthe illegal junta sponsored party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party, in the fakeparliament. Furthermore, many of the so-called elected members of the Union Solidarityand Development Party had been originally declared losers and were only declared“winners” once further fraudulent advance votes were counted in their favour,

Consequently, we would like to urge the elected democratic and ethnic partymembers not to attend the parliament that was shaped by these “sham elections”.

Also, this is the time for the parties and individual candidates who participated in these“sham elections” to demonstrate their gratitude to their voters by rejecting the results ofthese elections and by boycotting the fake national assembly and the upcomingparliament. We honestly believe that the representatives of all national and state levelshave the responsibility to stand up for the people by boycotting the fake parliament. Inaddition, we urge all the opposition parties and activists, both inside Burma andoverseas, that this is the time to fight against the deceptions of the military junta.